Attendance​

 

For a student to reach their full educational achievement a high level of school attendance is essential. We at Greenwood are committed to providing an education of the highest quality for all our students and endeavour to provide an environment where all students feel valued and welcome. Parents and students play a part in making our school so successful. Every student has a right to access the education to which he/she is entitled. Parents and teachers share the responsibility for supporting and promoting excellent school attendance and punctuality for all.

 

Responsibilities of students

 

· Hand in personal items on arrival at school

· Attend every day unless they are ill or have an authorised absence.

· Arrive in school on time in appearance acceptable to the school policy.

· Go to all their registrations and lessons on time.

· Take responsibility for registering at the reception desk if they are late or are leaving the school site during school hours.

 

Responsibilities of parents/carers

 

· Inform the school on the first day of absence by 9.15am.

· Discuss with the HoS, or other relevant staff member, any planned absences well in advance.

· Support the school with their child in aiming for 100% engagement in their provision each year.

· Make sure that any absence is clearly accounted for by telephone on the first and subsequent days of absence, or by letter if a phone is unavailable.

· Avoid taking their child out of school for non-urgent medical or dental appointments. Where it is not possible, please provide the school with an            appointment card/letter.

· Only request leave of absence if it is for an exceptional circumstance.

· Ensure their child has arrived at school by 8.45am each day. Any student who has not arrived at 8.45am is, by definition, late.

 

Recording attendance

 

Legally the register must be marked twice daily. This is once at the start of the morning session 8.45am, and again for the afternoon session at 11.35.

 

Any students who are educated offsite and having either home visits, CBT or other interventions with have their attendance recorded by Admin staff after the staff involved with the student inform reception on the day of the level of engagement. The student’s attendance will then reflect the level of engagement in line with their appropriate approved provision. Students on Tute Education will be visited once a week and their attendance will be sent from Tute Education on a weekly basis. Students on Tute Education will be C2 coded unless it is the home visit.

 

Any other students accessing alternative provisions will be checked on by Admin staff who will call the provision within an hour of the stipulated start, to see if the student has arrived and engaged.

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Lateness/punctuality

 

It is important to be on time at the start of the morning and afternoon school sessions and to lessons. The start of school/lessons is used to give out instructions or organise work. If your child is late they can miss work time with their class teacher getting vital information, cause disruption to the lesson for others, and it can be embarrassing leading to possible further absence.

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• The school day begins at 8.45am and all students are expected to be in school at this time and it closes at 9.15am.

• All lateness is recorded daily. This information will be required by the courts, should a prosecution for non-attendance or lateness be necessary.

• Arrival after the close of registration will be marked as unauthorised absence and coded U in line with Hampshire County Council and

  Department of Education guidance. This mark shows them to be on site, but is legally recorded as an absence.

• If a pupil is late due to a medical appointment, they will receive an authorised absence, coded M. Please be advised that, where possible,

  doctors and dentists appointments are to be made outside of school hours or during school holidays.

 

Students who are consistently late are disrupting not only their own education but also that of the other students. Ongoing and repeated lateness is considered as unauthorised absence and will be referred to the Legal Intervention Team and may be subject to legal action (see the County Council Code of conduct for further detail).

 

Parents, guardians or carers of pupils who have patterns of lateness will be contacted to discuss the importance of good time keeping and how this might be achieved. If lateness persists parents, guardians or carers will be invited to attend the school and discuss the problem and support offered. If support is not appropriate or is declined and a child has 10 or more sessions of unauthorised absence due to lateness recorded in any 10 week period, the school will refer the parents/carers to the Hampshire County Council Legal Intervention Team. The School will work with the parents, student and the Legal Intervention Team to ensure an improvement in attendance.

 

What to do if my child is absent?

 

First day absence

 

A child not attending school is considered a safeguarding matter. This is why information about the cause of any absence is always required.

 

If a child is absent from their provision, parents must:

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• contact the school by telephone as soon as possible on the first day of absence, ideally before 9.15am.

 

If your child is absent from their provision we could:

 

• telephone you on the first day of absence if we have not heard from you – this is because we have a duty to ensure your child’s safety as well as        their regular school attendance. We may invite you into school for an Attendance Review meeting to discuss the situation with our Head of School if    absences persist.

• refer the matter to the Hampshire County Council’s Legal Intervention Team if absence is unauthorised and the parents and child are not working to    improve attendance with the school.

 

Third day absence

 

If your child is still absent from their provision on the third day, we will either or do all:

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· Send a text asking parents to contact the school.

· Send a letter asking you to contact the school that day.

· Send an appropriate member of staff to make home visit.

· Invite you in to discuss the situation with our Head of School.

· Contact associated professionals where applicable i.e, YOT or Social Worker

 

Please note: If your child is not seen and contact has not been established with any of the named parents/carers, after three days of absence the school is required to start child missing in education procedures as set down by Hampshire County Council guidance. We will make all reasonable enquiries to establish contact with parents/carers and the child, including making enquiries to known friends, wider family and home visits by appropriate staff.

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Request for leave of absence

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Amendments to school attendance regulations were updated and enforced from September 2022: The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations state that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. It is important to note that Headteachers can determine the length of the authorised absence, as well as whether absence is authorised at all. The fundamental principles for defining exceptional are rare, significant, or unavoidable, which means the event could not reasonably be scheduled at another time. There are no rules on this as circumstances vary from school to school and family to family.

 

There is, however, no legal entitlement for time off in school term time to go on holiday and in the majority of cases holiday will not be authorised. Parents/carers wishing to apply for leave of absence need to fill in an application form (available from reception/form tutor in advance and before making any travel arrangements.

 

If term-time leave is taken without prior permission from the school, the absence will be unauthorised and if the number of sessions absent hits the thresholds set down in Hampshire County Council’s Attendance Guidance for Parents, parents/carers will be referred to the Inclusion Support Service will work with the school to issue with a penalty notice, or other legal action in accordance the guidance.

 

https://www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/behaviour-attendance-parents

 

Taking holidays in term time will affect your child’s schooling as much as any other absence and we expect parents to help us by not taking children out during school time.

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For further details please read the School Attendance Policy below.

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